Author and humorist Erma Bombeck once wrote, “When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.” As parents, we all have moments when we would like to hide away, avoid confrontation, and wait for the quiet that follows the storm. Parenting is an incredible challenge,… Read more »
Learn More
Emotional hunger is not love. It is a strong emotional need caused by deprivation in childhood. It is a primitive condition of pain and longing which people often act out in a desperate attempt to fill a void or emptiness. This emptiness is related to the pain of aloneness and separateness and can never realistically… Read more »
Learn More
If it suddenly feels like anywhere you go, you’re surrounded by heavily pregnant women, it is probably not your imagination. In the United States, there are more births during the months that close out summer and ring in fall than any other time of year. The season marks an exciting and scary time in the… Read more »
Learn More
In the following interview, Dr. Dan Siegel talks about the different types of attachment styles that individuals develop during childhood as a result of the relationship they had with their parents. Embracing the freedom to see parents as they really are literally liberates the adolescent to find his or her own way in life. The… Read more »
Learn More
In the following interview, Dr. Dan Siegel talks about the different types of attachment styles that individuals develop during childhood as a result of the relationship they had with their parents. Embracing the freedom to see parents as they really are literally liberates the adolescent to find his or her own way in life. The clips… Read more »
Learn More
The matter of siblings is complicated. In family life they are our first peers. Consequently, we learn many of our problem solving skills and intimate social relating from these interactions and how our parents mediate them. There are millions of conflicts a week: Johnny breaks Suzie’s toy, Suzie calls Johnny a name, Johnny doesn’t want… Read more »
Learn More
In 1989, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a public report stating that up to a third of all teen suicides were committed by gay youth, there was a flurry of media attention and speculation surrounding the rising rates of teen suicide committed by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered youth. It… Read more »
Learn More
From sitting them in corners to sending to their rooms, from saying to “say sorry” to giving a time out, the methods are all different but the question is the same: What is really the best way to discipline a child? Disciplining our children is one of parenting’s least appealing tasks. Unless you intended to… Read more »
Learn More
One of the biggest challenges for us as parents is remembering that our children are not us. In spite of the fact that they came from us, that they share our genetic makeup, and that they are shaped by the emotional environment that we are raising them in, they are not us. Our children are… Read more »
Learn More
Dealing with your kids’ tantrums and mood swings can be one of parenting’s most frustrating challenges. From public meltdowns to prolonged fits, these extreme outbursts of emotion have the capacity to provoke extreme reactions in us. Methods that are effective in dealing with the child’s natural expressions of anger or frustration don’t work in this… Read more »
Learn More